September 15, 2014

Steve Jobs Kept His Kids Away From iPads

Everyone likes new technology. iPads and other tablets have been a huge success everywhere yet I have some complaints with the new model.

I am not happy that the connector was changed, as has the latest iPhone's although there is an adpator. And I am not crazy about the latest version of iTunes. It took me ages to get my older version to look how I wanted it to look and am most reluctant to upgrade.

Having said that the new connector is a much bigger nuisance because many people, including myself, have bought products with docking stations for a different, or possibly better, home stereo experience.This kind of thing really annoys me and I guess it must have annoyed a lot of the manufacturers who went to the trouble of creating products with docking stations for Apple products. It would have been nice if Apple had considered this.

HE may have been dubbed "the master evangelist of
the digital age", but even the late Steve Jobs worried about the effect
technology has on children.

While he persuaded millions that Apple's chic but
pricey gadgets were a must-buy, turning the company from a basket case to a
global powerhouse, he prevented his own children from using iPads and limited
their access to the internet generally.

To a generation of young people it may sound like
the most boring of the seven circles of hell, but the Jobs' children would
instead sit around a long dinner table in the kitchen and actually talk to one
another.

The shock revelation that Jobs' children were not
uber-geeks came from United States journalist Nick Bilton, who recalled a
conversation with the Apple co-founder in 2010, a year before he died.

Jobs had called him to complain after Bilton wrote
about a perceived failing of the iPad, which had just gone on sale. Bilton,
writing in the New York Times, said that "after he had finished chewing me out"
he had been shocked by Jobs' response to a question that was mainly designed to
change the subject.

"So, your kids must love the iPad?" he asked. But
Jobs replied: "They haven't used it. We limit how much technology our kids use
at home." Bilton said he responded "with a gasp and
dumbfounded Silence".

"I had imagined the Jobs' household was like a
nerd's paradise: that the walls were giant touch screens, and the dining table
was made from tiles of iPads," he wrote. Walter Isaacson, the author of the biography
called simply Steve Jobs, told him later that "every evening Steve made a point
of having dinner at the big long table in their kitchen, discussing books and
history and a variety of things".

"No one ever pulled out an iPad or computer. The
kids did not seem addicted at all to devices," he added.

Chris Anderson, ex-editor of technology magazine
Wired, who has five children aged 6 to 17, agreed with the Jobs family approach.

"My kids accuse me and my wife of being fascists
and overly concerned about tech, and they say that none of their friends have
the same rules," he told Bilton. "That's because we have seen the dangers of
technology first-hand. I don't want to see that happen to my kids."

There is some scientific support for the idea that
modern technology can be damaging.

A study, published last month, of 11- and
12-year-olds found that removing digital devices, including televisions, for
five days saw an improvement in social skills.